


Lately, a Fascination with Bees

by scioscribe



Category: Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner
Genre: Depression, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-13
Updated: 2012-06-13
Packaged: 2017-11-07 16:18:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scioscribe/pseuds/scioscribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alec is a very poor beekeeper to be so enamored of his work.  Then again, he's never been the type of mind a sting or two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lately, a Fascination with Bees

All the beekeepers Richard had known, before Alec, wore long-sleeved white quilting and square hats with veils that fell down across their chests. Alec wore nothing of the kind.

Though considering how often Alec came back to him with red-and-white swellings all about, it was possible, Richard supposed, that Alec didn’t properly count as a beekeeper at all. He may have simply been a man who owned a number of bees and persisted in involving himself with them, however obviously unsuited for the work. Richard was polite to the women who came to clean for them and so earned a pot of salve for Alec’s beestings. So far it had squatted unused on the mantel, looking for all the world like a slightly angry god with its hands on its hips. Richard quite agreed with its opinion, but Alec had never been one to put a stop to pain when there was a chance to prolong it.

“They don’t hurt much,” Alec said. He stretched his hands out for Richard. It was an invitation to touch, not to look—Alec knew enough to put anything he wanted Richard to see at the very outside limits of another man’s vision, where the blackness of Richard’s eyes gave way to light. “Feel.”

“I can’t feel for you,” Richard protested, but he glided his fingertips along Alex’s hands all the same. “Here,” he said, where a pinprick pushed its way out of Alex’s skin. “And here. Here. And here you haven’t pulled the stinger out, look.” He pinched it away.

“Like a pin stuck in cloth,” Alec said dreamily. “And when you try it on, it catches—”

“You should use a better tailor, then. Or you might learn to mend your own things. I could teach you, it isn’t hard.”

“Are needles just swords made small, then? I suppose there’s nothing you don’t have a talent for.”

“Oh, no,” Richard said. There were some things he was quite stupid about, it was just that there was no sense in dwelling on them if they were not things he could improve. He had no intention of listing his shortcomings now, however. In this kind of mood, Alec’s languor could turn to cruelty in a flash. “Many things. I only meant if you’re tired of being a pincushion, you might learn to sew. Or tend your bees a different way. I don’t think they like you.”

“Strange to think of insects having tastes,” Alec said. He put his fingers against Richard’s mouth. “Do I taste like honey?”

Richard kissed his fingertips. “Honeycomb.” And sweat, and grass, and the ghost of thyme the wind carried with it, always. If it were Richard’s decision, he would glove Alec hands when he went out to his bees, and he would put a veil and padding over him, so that whatever tried to hurt him would always fall short of his skin. There was no way, unfortunately, of keeping Alec from himself. “Will you stay inside today? The bees will make their honey on their own. They can sting you twice as much tomorrow to make up for anything they’ve missed. Any spots they haven’t found. Like here. Or here.”

A smart man always knew how to match his opponent; anticipate his moves. And Richard had watched Alec for a long time.

“I don’t want to have come so far,” Alec said, slipping down to the floor, “to have ended up in the same place again.”

“It’s a different country.”

Alec reached up for him, and his hand went in and out of Richard’s vision, like a bird come and gone too quick to really see. “The bees are the same. And you. You never did change any.”

Richard found him in the darkness. “Is that good or bad?”

“Oh, Richard. I’ve lacked constancy so often that you’re all I haven’t changed. It’s like this place. Coming to the source of things, after so long—I have always had a fondness for honey.”

“And lately, a fascination with bees.”

“No, the bees came first. It was only because of the bees that I noticed the honey. I used to steal from the hives at Tremontaine, because it made the taste sweeter. But the sting is indispensible.”

The wind came through the curtains. As they settled in, Richard listened to the sounds of the breeze instead of to Alec, because it made his head hurt less.

“The woman who brought the salve told me that it burns a little,” Richard offered. “At first.”

Alec sighed and stretched. Whatever he had won, it was enough that he felt he could now lose a little, or else be generous in his victory. “Bring it here, then,” and, “Nothing like honey at all, nothing like you,” when Richard rubbed it into his skin, and he shivered.


End file.
